10 Ramalan Masa Depan Versi Video Game

Waktu adalah sebuah kekuatan yang absolut dan masa depan boleh jadi merupakan sebuah konsep yang tidak mungkin dapat dihindari. Manusia, sebagai yang paling berkepentingan lewat peradaban, kemudian hidup di dalam waktu dan menjadikannya sebagai sebuah sarana untuk menumbuhkan dan mengembangkan diri. Manusia kemudian mulai berencana dan menetapkan sebuah visi dan misi sebagai target untuk masa depan. Walaupun beberapa di antaranya tampak mustahil, namun visi akan masa depan selalu menjadi batu dasar untuk menjadikannya sebagai sesuatu yang nyata. Di antara semua media fiksi yang ada, video game boleh terbilang sebagai yang paling aktif memberikan sedikit gambaran tentang masa depan manusia.
Tidak hanya tampil dalam masa depan yang optimis dan indah, tidak sedikit developer yang memvisualisasikan masa depan yang begitu kelam untuk umat manusia. Beberapa bahkan hadir dalam dunia yang sudah hancur berantakan tanpa peradaban masa sekali, menghasilkan ketakutan dan rasa pesimisme tersendiri. Dengan basis argumentasi yang seringkali dapat diterima oleh akal, visualisasi masa depan yang diperlihatkan oleh banyak industri game ini bukanlah sesuatu yang tidak mungkin terjadi. Oleh karena itu, tidak berlebihan rasanya jika kita melihatnya sebagai sebuah “ramalan”. Apakah akan terjadi atau tidak? Beberapa memang terlihat sebagai sebuah fenomena yang tidak terhindarkan.
Lantas, apa saja 10 ramalan kehidupan manusia di masa depan menurut video game?

10. Nanomachine untuk Pasukan Militer (2014 – Metal Gear Solid 4)

Setiap manusia memang lahir dengan insting agresif hewani sebagai sumber energi untuk mempertahankan diri dari segala macam ancaman. Melakukannya dalam skala besar? Maka kita akan mendapatkan kumpulan manusia yang tidak ragu mengangkat senjata dan mengorbankan perang, sesuatu yang memang tidak mudah dihapuskan begitu saja dari dunia. Kojiima memberikan sedikit visualisasi seperti apa penggunaan teknologi militer di masa depan lewat MGS 4. Teknologi militer saat itu akan memungkinkan banyak negara untuk mengembangkan pasukan khususn dengan kekuatan yang luar biasa lewat injeksi nanomachine. Tidak hanya itu saja, nanomachine juga akan berperan sebagai kontrol peredaran senjata, dimana sistem ID Tag yang ada hanya akan memungkinkan seorang menggunakan senjata yang sudah diregistrasikan atas nanomachinenya. Kojima memprediksikan ini terjadi 2014 yang berarti 2 tahun setelah artikel ini ditulis. Apakah kita akan melihat teknologi ini dalam waktu dekat? Mungkin saja.

9. Teknologi Menghadirkan Musuh Baru! (2025 – Call of Duty Black Ops II)

Dari semua ramalan masa depan yang akan dihadirkan di artikel ini, visualisasi masa depan dari Activision dan Treyach yang akan ditampilkan pada seri FPS teranyar mereka yang akan dirilis tahun ini – Call of Duty Black Ops 2 boleh disimpulkan sebagai yang paling mendekati kenyataan. Siapa yang dapat menyangkal bahwa teknologi telah membuat kehidupan manusia saat ini menjadi lebih mudah. Semuanya serba terkoneksi, membuat beragam fungsi mampu terintegrasi dalam satu jaringan. Jika berjalan dengan lancar, hal ini tentu saja akan semakin membuat kehidupan manusia jauh lebih mudah. Namun sayangnya, hal ini juga akan memicu musuh baru. Pada tahun 2025 dimana teknologi militer telah dikuasai oleh senjata-senjata perang tanpa awak yang dikendalikan menggunakan jaringan, hacker tentu tumbuh menjadi musuh yang paling ditakuti. Dengan memanfaatkan celah keamanan, mereka akan dapat menguasai banyak hal yang kini sudah terdigitalisasi, dari senjata perang hingga akun keuangan Anda. Sebuah ketakutan yang tentu saja sangat beralasan.

8. Manusia dengan Augmentasi (2027 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution)

15 tahun sejak artikel ini ditulis, Eidos meramalkan sebuah  dunia modern yang tidak lagi hanya dihiasi oleh gedung-gedung super tinggi, tetapi juga teknologi-teknologi yang dibangun untuk mempengaruhi kehidupan manusia secara langsung. Korporasi dunia mulai melirik perangkat teknologi bernama “Augmentation” yang memungkinkan manusia untuk berfungsi layaknya “cyborg”. Dengan augmentation, seorang manusia memiliki kemampuan fisik yang jauh lebih baik. Tidak hanya itu saja, kebutuhannya untuk terintegrasi pada jaringan membuat manusia dengan augmentation dapat mengumpulkan informasi kolektif dengan lebih mudah. Tak berbeda dengan kondisi nyata saat ini, karena ia merupakan teknologi korporasi, maka hanya orang-orang dengan uang ekstra lah yang bisa mendapatkan augmentation.

7. Sebuah Dunia Tanpa Hukum! (2029 – Rage)

Kiamat memang tidak terhindarkan, namun manusia selalu punya insting untuk bertahan hidup dengan segala cara, seperti yang terjadi pada dunia RAGE ini. Pada tahun 2029, sebuah asteroid super besar menghantam bumi dan meluluhlantakkan hampir semua kehidupan dan peradaban di dunia. Namun sebuah gerakan “penyelamatan” sudah dipersiapkan dengan memuat manusia-manusia yang dianggap penting di dunia ke dalam sebuah kapsul bernama “Ark”. Hancurnya peradaban tentu memaksa manusia untuk mengembangkan kualitas hidup mereka kembali dari awal. Pada akhirnya, layaknya manusia purba, hukum rimba kembali berlaku. Manusia-manusia ini mulai membentuk komunitas-komunitasnya sendiri, berusaha melakukan ekspansi, dan menguasai lebih banyak daerah. Tidak ada hukum yang mengatur kehidupan secara umum dan setiap manusia harus berjuang sendiri untuk mempertahankan hidupnya. Sebuah masa depan yang suram.

6. Serahkan Tugas Harianmu Pada Para Robot (2040 – Binary Domain)

Kondisi dunia yang tersapu oleh banjir besar membuat manusia tidak memiliki opsi lain selain membangun peradaban secara vertikal. Tentu saja tidak mungkin untuk mengutus manusia dan mengorbankan nyawa mereka untuk melaksanakan tugas penting ini, oleh karena itu, robot diciptakan sebagai bagian dari teknologi yang esensial untuk keberlangsungan kehidupan manusia. Robot humanoid tumbuh menjadi asisten terbaik untuk mempermudah hidup manusia. Teknologi yang berkembang saat itu bahkan memungkinkan manusia untuk menciptakan robot dalam bentuk manusia dengan reaksi dan sistem memori yang menyerupai manusia. Wow! Walaupun terkesan sulit untuk diraih oleh kehidupan manusia saat ini, namun cikal bakal lahirnya robot memang sudah terlihat jelas. Apakah kita akan melihat para robot berkeliaran di jalanan saat kita tua nanti? Mungkin saja.

5. Menambang di Planet Lain! (2070 – Red Faction)

Sudah bukan rahasia lagi bahwa manusia memang menggantungkan keberlangsungan hidupnya pada ketersediaan sumber daya alam di bumi. Sebagai bahan baku untuk menciptakan begitu banyak hal yang esensial bagi manusia, termasuk bahan bakar, barang tambang memang menjadi komoditas berharga. Namun sayang, jarang orang yang mengingat bahwa tambang-tambang ini sesungguhnya sangat terbat. Bayangkan apa yang akan terjadi jika tidak ada lagi sumber daya alam sama sekali di bumi ini? Visualisasi Red Faction mengambil dasar plot ini. Namun bukannya sekedar menyerah dan mencari alternatif sumber daya, manusia kemudian mulai melirik teknologi luar angkasa untuk mencapai planet-planet terdekat. Tujuan utamanya tentu jelas: “menghabiskan” semua barang tambang yang tersedia di dalamnya.

4. Warp Drive Ditemukan! (2087 – Star Ocean: The Last Hope)

Penggunaan senjata-senjata berat pada perang dunia ketiga membuat manusia tidak dapat lagi menghuni bumi. Penelitian dilakukan untuk mencari beragam alternatif cara untuk memastikan eksistensi manusia sebagai sebuah spesies tidak akan punah. Setelah tinggal di bawah tanah selama ratusan tahun akibat kontaminasi zat kimia yang menyebar luas di permukaan akibat perang, manusia akhirnya memutuskan untuk mencari cara agar dapat mencari dunia baru lainnya yang dapat dijadikan tempat teknologi. Tahun 2087, sebuah jalan keluar dihasilkan. Teknologi warp drive yang memungkinkan manusia untuk berselancar dalam jarak jutaan cahaya hanya dalam hitungan detik membuat misi ini dimungkinkan. Selamat tinggal bumi dan selamat datang planet baru!

3. Selamat Datang Mecha Perang! (2112 – Front Mission 3)

Mengangkat AK 47 dan menembak membabi buta di padang pasir tampaknya bukanlah strategi perang yang mampu menghasilkan damage yang sepadan pada kekuatan musuh di tahun 2112. Di masa ini, para negara mulai memproduksi mecha-mecha, robot berukuran super besar, yang memang didesain untuk menjadi pasukan perang di garis paling depan. Mecha-mecha ini akan dipersenjatai dengan senjata melee dan range dengan ukuran super besar pula. Kemenangan sebuah negara dalam konflik tidak lagi dipengaruhi seberapa baik para pasukan mereka bergerak tersembunyi dan taktis, tetapi pada seberapa baik para pilot mecha-mecha ini mengendalikan robotnya di medan pertempuran. Tidak hanya video game, banyak anime Jepang seperti Gundam juga memvisualisasikan masa depan yang sama. Apakah robot-robot ini akan terwujud dalam 100 tahun ke depan? Bukan sesuatu yang mustahil.

2. Teknologi Alien Membuat Lompatan Peradaban (2148 – Mass Effect)

Perjalanan eksplorasi manusia ke Mars menemukan sebuah temuan yang mengejutkan. Sebuah ras alien yang sudah punah – Protheans meninggalkan jejak-jejak teknologi di planet Merah tersebut. Mempelajari, membangun, dan mengadaptasi teknologi yang ditinggalkan oleh mereka, manusia mulai mendapatkan cara termudah untuk bergerak antar galaksi dengan jarak ratusan cahaya hanya dalam sekejap. Tidak lagi terpaku pada planet-planet yang mengorbit di tata surya, manusia mulai menyebarkan diri pada galaksi-galaksi terluar dan membangun koloni-koloni yang sporadis. Tidak hanya itu saja, perjalanan ini juga membawa manusia pada interaksi pertamanya dengan makhluk-makhluk hidup lain yang memiliki peradaban yang lebih maju.

1. Tidak Ada Lagi Bumi yang Sama (2277 – Fallout 3)

Dari semua masa depan yang ditampilkan oleh industri game, seri Fallout mungkin menghadirkan visualisasi yang tergelap. 200 tahun setelah perang nuklir yang menghancurkan sebagian besar dunia, bumi tampil sebagai sebuah planet yang hampir tidak layak huni. Lupakan tentang pohon dan binatang-binatang manis yang mengitarinya di pagi hari, bumi telah berubah menjadi sebuah medan gersang yang menyedihkan. Tidak hanya hukum rimba yang berlaku, bumi juga mulai dipenuhi oleh teknologi-teknologi senjata yang berbahaya dengan makhluk-makhluk mutasi yang tidak segan menyantap siapapun yang menghampiri mereka. Ini tentu akan menjadi bumi yang berbeda dengan yang kita lihat selama ini. Menyembuhkan diri dan mengembalikannya ke kondisi semula setelah kekacauan seperti ini? Tentu saja bukan pekerjaan yang mudah. Bagian yang paling menyeramkannya? Bagi saya pribadi, skenario yang ditampilkan oleh Bethesda ini bukanlah sesuatu yang tidak mungkin untuk terjadi di masa depan. Perang nuklir dan kehancuran? Seolah tidak terhindarkan.
Demikian adalah 10 ramalan masa depan menurut versi video game dari kami. Sebagian besar darinya memang memperlihatkan visualisasi dunia yang pesimis dan penuh dengan “kegelapan”, namun sebagai sebuah ramalan, kita tentu sangat berharap bahwa tidak ada satupun darinya yang menjadi kenyataan. Namun tentu menjadi sesuatu yang terlalu naif jika berharap bahwa bumi akan berputar dengan kecepatan konstan dan manusia akan hidup dengan damai di dalamnya. Harus diakui, tidak ada satupun skenario di atas yang tidak mungkin untuk terjadi karena manusia sendiri juga sudah mulai membangun teknologi ke arah dengan potensi ketakutan yang sama.
Jangan ragu untuk meninggalkan komentar di bawah ini jika Anda merasa ada ramalan masa depan yang seharusnya masuk ke dalam list ini. Atau jika Anda memiliki referensi video game dengan setting dengan visualisasi masa depan yang indah? We welcome you..

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Stealth Force Edition Review

The Good

• Attractive art style during cutscenes.

The Bad

• It's a Transformers game in which you can't transform into a robot  
• No depth, fun, or excitement  
• Only a few hours' worth of content  
• Drab visuals.

What makes a Transformer a Transformer? You don't need to know the difference between Soundwave and Shockwave to know that it's their ability to change from robots into vehicles, weapons, boom boxes, and other things that defines the Transformers. How strange it is, then, that Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Stealth Force Edition strips the robots in disguise of this quintessential characteristic. Here, you're limited to the Transformers' vehicle forms and their "stealth force" forms, which are slower, more maneuverable versions of their vehicle forms with weapons attached to them. Yes, this is a Transformers game in which you never play in robot form, and this bizarre limitation prevents it from feeling like an authentic Transformers experience. This might have been forgivable if Stealth Force Edition managed to be a fun vehicle combat game, but it isn't; it's a shallow, short, and dull game that has nothing to offer Transformers fans or anyone else.

The Transformers have agreed to stop transforming and to settle their differences by strafing and shooting at each other.

Stealth Force Edition is broken up into 18 missions, across which you play as eight Transformers, including the speedy Camaro Bumblebee and the lumbering tank Megatron. None of the missions takes more than a few minutes to complete, so there's only roughly two hours' worth of content here. But nonetheless, you won't be sorry when it comes to an end. Although there are 18 individual missions, they only come in a few different flavors, and by the time the credits roll, you'll have had more than your fill of each one. In some missions, you must destroy a certain number of enemy Transformers. It's such a tedious task that, by the time you've fulfilled your first objective of destroying 12 Autobots or whatever the mission might call for, you're ready for it to be over, and being presented with a new objective--"Defeat 12 more Autobots," for instance--only prolongs your suffering. Other missions are checkpoint races against the clock in which you must scurry quickly from one spot to another while enemy Transformers try to kill you. There are missions in which you must either destroy a few structures or protect a few structures from enemy attacks. And, finally, there are a few boss battles, which all play out the same way.
None of these mission types are exciting because the underlying gameplay is so shallow. In vehicle mode, you move quickly, with all of your movement handled by the circle pad; there are no accelerate or brake buttons, although there is a button to immediately perform a 180-degree turn. When you shift into stealth force mode, weapons sprout from your shell, and although you move much slower, you can strafe from side to side. And you'd better get used to doing so, because strafing and shooting are all there is to the combat in Stealth Force Edition.
Each Transformer you control has two types of weapons: a machine-gun-like weapon with unlimited ammo, and a special weapon--a missile launcher, shotgun, or the like--with ammo you must collect from around the small environments. Combat boils down to getting close to enemies and strafing and shooting until they explode. There's no depth, no room to develop different tactics; you strafe and you shoot. If you're fighting a boss, you frequently switch back into vehicle mode, speed away to track down some energon to restore your health, and then head back to the boss to chip away at his health some more. And that's all there is to it. The action starts off tediously and doesn't evolve at all from there. Two hours is absurdly short for a game, but Stealth Force Edition overstays its welcome within the first few minutes.

The Autobots' plan to overwhelm the Decepticons with weak, mass-produced red cars with guns on them isn't going so well.

There's a bare-bones story in Stealth Force Edition, but it offers nothing more than a flimsy setup for each mission. It's too bad, because the visual style of the animated cutscenes that precede certain missions is the only good thing about the game, striking an interesting balance between the character designs of the Michael Bay films and the vibrant colors of the classic Transformers cartoons. Aside from these brief interludes, the graphics are as dull as the gameplay. The drab urban and desert environments are sparse, textures are simple, and there's not a single moment of inspired design or visual surprise. The sound design is similarly poor; generic enemy grunts repeat generic phrases so frequently that you'll wish the Transformers had never crash-landed on Earth.
The fact that this sad excuse for a vehicle combat game features Transformers characters only makes it more dissatisfying because it utterly fails to capture the essence of the license. If it's a Transformers experience you're after, you're much better off buying some Transformers toys and making up your own adventures, as they're sure to be more fun, and to involve more transforming, than this game does. Regardless of what you're looking for in a game, you won't find it here. Steer clear of Stealth Force Edition at all costs.

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Dead Block Review

The Good

• Enjoyable array of booby traps.

The Bad

• Majority of gameplay consists of the same repetitive actions  
• When you are doing great, it's boring  
• When you are doing poorly, it's frustrating  
• Timing-based minigames hampered by delay.

It's no secret that the zombie apocalypse has been in vogue for the past few years and experiencing a multimedia renaissance that would warm George A. Romero's heart. Dead Block is the latest downloadable attempt to reap this fertile harvest by cultivating a different take on the undead end times. On each level, you find yourself trapped in a building. You must explore this building, gather resources, barricade windows, and set traps to fend off the incoming zombie hordes until you can kill them all with rock and roll. It's a strange, campy twist on survival horror, and the clever traps that the three playable characters can deploy fuel some light strategy. Unfortunately, "light" is as deep as the strategy gets. Furthermore, almost all of the actions you perform involve simply holding a button, mashing a button, or tapping a button in an ill-calibrated timing challenge. Repetition creeps in from all sides, and boredom sets in for the duration. Even adding a few local friends into the mix doesn't liven things up, making Dead Block one zombie apocalypse that's best left unsurvived.

When Foxy whistles, a member of Village People and that kid from Up come a-runnin'.

Every level in Dead Block plays out in much the same way. You find yourself inside of a building littered with objects and furniture. Zombies lurk outside of the building, eager to gain egress through windows. You must destroy furniture to get wood to build barricades. You must also search objects for items required to beat the level, access new rooms, utilize environmental hazards, and build specialty traps. If zombies get in your face, you can kill them in hand-to-rotting-hand combat, but it's preferable to destroy them with traps and hazards. Once you've collected three key items or killed a set number of zombies, you can beat the level by playing a rhythm game or hitting a button, respectively. You can earn medals for destroying all the furniture, searching all the objects, killing a set number of zombies, and remaining alive throughout the level, all of which add to your score and improve your standing on the online leaderboards.
Initially, it seems like balancing resource collection with zombie slaying could provide an engaging challenge. If you plan things well, you can wreak havoc on the interior decor of each room while letting judiciously placed traps destroy or weaken incoming zombies. Once the room is clear, you can waltz out with your pockets full of resources, and either seal the area off or funnel the undead to specific, booby-trapped doorways. Depending on which character you are using and how far in the campaign you are, there are a variety of fun traps to deploy. Some kill zombies outright, like the microwave and bomb traps. Other traps soften the undead up by turning them into weak old zombies or smacking their skulls with a rolling pin. Still others co-opt the zombies to your purposes by sending them on furniture-smashing sprees or making them targets for the predations of their own kind. Though things can get hectic, it isn't hard to get into the groove on a level and feel like a zombie-annihilating machine.
The neat satisfaction of such skilled play, however, is doused by boredom. When things are going well, you are running a few feet at a time and then tapping the B button to destroy a piece of furniture (a barely animated visual disappointment) or alternately pulling the triggers to search an object (always the same lame junk-flinging slideshow). These repetitive actions take up the majority of your time, and you interrupt them only to reset a trap or reinforce a barricade. Both of these tasks occur automatically once you initiate them, but you can accelerate them by either holding a button or tapping a button when a sliding indicator reaches the target zone (or more accurately, slightly before it reaches the zone to compensate for input delay). You spend almost all your time in Dead Block smashing, searching, and setting traps, and all of these actions are boring. Even attempts to liven things up go awry, as illustrated by the poorly calibrated end-of-level minigame that plays like an insult to the memory of Guitar Hero.

Three players smashing furniture, one player killing a zombie - a telling ratio.

If your plan gets fouled up, you soon find yourself beset by more zombies than your relatively weak melee attack (and constitution) can handle. You can attack zombies by tapping the right shoulder button, but you have to run in, hit one a few times, and then duck out before you get smacked, or else you won't survive long. It's all the excitement of smashing furniture with the extra fun of clumsily running back and forth in a cramped space! Using environmental hazards like jukeboxes (most nearby zombies dance themselves to death) and televisions (all nearby zombies are enthralled and stand motionless) can help you handle the hordes better, as can each character's smart bomb ability. These abilities stun or kill a certain number of zombies, and they can be upgraded by searching objects. There is an inherent satisfaction in clearing out a group of zombies with your abilities, but it also means you have more time to get the dull smash-search-set grind back on track.
The 10 levels of the campaign can also be played cooperatively with up to three local players, and having other humans on your team makes you much more efficient (the AI allies who intermittently join you on single-player levels only help out in limited ways). Unfortunately, the more efficient your team is, the clearer it becomes that Dead Block is shallow and repetitive to the core. The campy B-movie vibe and cartoon aesthetic aren't good enough to add much appeal, and the few clever ideas get lost in a sea of relentless button tapping. In an actual zombie apocalypse, Dead Block's simple zombie-clearing tactics and industrious fortification construction would be desirable, but in this video game zombie apocalypse, they're just dull.

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LIMBO Review

The Good

• Moody, black-and-white visuals  
• Excellent sound design  
• Thoughtful puzzles with lots of variety  
• Hidden secrets reward a second play-through.

The Bad

• Ends abruptly.

Somewhere between life and death lies limbo, a nightmarish place where the feeble rays of light that flicker from above are swallowed whole by ink-black shadows. A young boy, courageous though ill-equipped to survive in such a hostile place, is trapped in this dreamworld, locked away from the safety of reality. Dangerous creatures, hostile natives, and deadly traps populate this eerie plane of existence, making survival the only tangible goal to strive for. Limbo dresses the cerebral lure of thoughtful puzzles with a bleak visual design and sparse, moody audio to suck you in as completely as the protagonist child who is mercilessly trapped here. This artistic, somber adventure so expertly combines all of its elements that it's nigh impossible to shake free from its grip once it grabs hold of you.

You have to be nimble to survive limbo.

The opening scene thrusts you into this world without any explanation for your predicament. You play as a young child who finds himself lying on his back in a foreign land that is far from welcoming. He is virtually featureless, appearing as a black silhouette that frequently blends in with the dark surroundings you must travel through. His lone distinctive characteristic is his shining, white eyes. These flashes of light are always visible, making it the one part of his body you can recognize even when the rest of the screen is completely black. There is no story pushing you through this quest, no signs to give you hints nor characters to clue you in on an overarching plot. Rather, this is a game about survival, where merely making it from one area to the next, surviving one obstacle after another, is what pushes you on.
The subdued aesthetics more than make up for the lack of an elaborate tale, using subtle audio hooks and restrained visuals to guide you further along your destined path. Limbo is fully realized in shades of black and white. You walk through dense forests, decrepit towns, and abandoned factories, all of which feel confining and desolate, creating an ominous sense of entrapment. There is a hazy flicker at all times, a film-grain grit that makes the world of Limbo feel tarnished and unclean. For the majority of your adventure, there is no music to accompany you along the way. Instead, there are quiet ambient noises that slowly fade into and out of existence. A patter of raindrops or rustle of wind is sometimes cued up, or a quiet chirping from crickets. But there are moments when music does kick in. A heavy bass note will crash down or a light melody will briefly start up, and these tie in beautifully with your onscreen actions.
You have a small repertoire of moves to help you stay alive in this 2D puzzle/platformer hybrid. A modest jump allows you to clear small gaps; certain objects can be pushed or pulled; and you can climb up or swing from ropes. Submerging yourself too deep in water, falling from a high ledge, or making contact with any of the numerous traps will kill you instantly, sending you back to the previous checkpoint. Your lack of heroic moves does not mean that the puzzles you must overcome are equally limited, though. There’s plenty of variety in Limbo’s puzzles, and even those that appear similar initially are invariably quite different. The early puzzles are single-step affairs that require you to move a bear trap out of the way or cross a river. But later puzzles are much more complex, forcing you to use objects, flip switches, and perform perfect jumps in order to come out on top.

Just like a young George Washington.

The puzzles in Limbo are rarely difficult, but they do take a bit of thought to complete, and it's eminently satisfying to figure them out and continue on your way. Trial and error is a strong component because death often springs from unexpected places. A boulder may tumble down a hill with no warning or a floor may become electrified while you're still standing on it. Oftentimes, unavoidable death in games can lead to frustration, but Limbo avoids this pitfall for a number of reasons. First of all, the checkpoint system is very forgiving. You usually reappear no more than a few paces away from where you died, so there is little unnecessary backtracking to reach the puzzle that thwarted you earlier. Furthermore, obstacles are laid out in a logical manner, so once you have an idea of what to expect, you can move on with little problem. For instance, a bear trap swinging from a rope may have ended your life the first time, but once you know what to expect, you can jump out of the way the next time you see it. Finally, there are subtle clues to help you complete most of the puzzles. A clatter offscreen indicates that an important object was knocked from a tree, or a swinging spotlight may guide you in the right direction so you know when to time your jumps. Because Limbo rewards patience and avoids frustration, the puzzles are always enjoyable to solve, and the variety will keep pushing your brain the whole way through.
Limbo is laid out in a linear way, with one obstacle placed after another as you dutifully march from left to right. There aren't any level breaks or partitions to separate one section from another, either. Without any load times or story segments to distract you from the gameplay, you're continually submerged in this bleak world. This unremitting focus draws you fully into this dark place, keeping your eyes locked on the gloomy visuals and your mind keyed on the clever puzzles without any other stimuli demanding your attention. This single-mindedness makes it easy to lose track of the time and play through the entire adventure in one sitting. It should take less than five hours your first time through, and though it's disappointing that the ending comes so abruptly, it is worth revisiting Limbo when you're done. There are collectibles to be found when you stray from the most obvious path, and locating them is every bit as satisfying as solving the game’s many puzzles.

The other children call him Worm Head. Kids can be so cruel.

Even though there aren't developed characters or a story to care about, Limbo elicits a strong emotional connection. The striking visuals and low-key audio are instrumental in pulling you in, but it's the harsh manner in which death is depicted that conjures the most powerful pangs. This is a violent game. The boy can die in a wide variety of ways, and every death is incredibly painful to behold. Bear traps cut you into pieces, spikes impale you, and electrical currents shoot through your body. The elaborate death sequences do not feature excessive amounts of blood, but they are affecting nonetheless because of their shocking depictions. Death is handled in such a cold manner that it continually shocks, even after you've seen it dozens of times. This creates an emotional immediacy that is difficult to forget.
Limbo poses the questions of death versus life and reality versus dream, but it doesn't answer them. It's the questions that are important here, and you're left to contemplate the meaning of this world for yourself. Although this is a game without clear-cut answers, the lack of concrete explanations doesn't detract one bit from the overall experience. This is a delicately crafted adventure whose elements tie seamlessly together. The fact that you can finish the entire game in just a few hours is disappointing only because it's so difficult to pull yourself away once you've been sucked in. Limbo is a superb adventure from beginning to end.

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Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions Review

The Good

• Includes two timeless arcade classics  
• Pac-Man: CE and Galaga Legions are great.

The Bad

• Do we really need another release of Pac-Man or Galaga?  
• Not the best versions of Pac-Man: CE or Galaga Legions  
• The two brand new games aren't much fun.

Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions offers something old and something new. This anthology includes six games, the oldest of which hit arcades in 1980 and the newest of which are available here for the first time. Unfortunately, the two brand-new games fail to live up to the high standard set by their esteemed predecessors. And as rightfully beloved as the oldest games here are, it's unlikely that you're craving yet another release of those widely available classics. Pac-Man: Championship Edition and Galaga Legions round out this package, and they're exciting updates of the games that inspired them, but this isn't the best way to play them, and as great as they are, they can't justify this compilation's full price.

So, space bugs. We meet again.

Spearheading this collection are two entirely new games. Galaga 3D Impact is an on-rails shooter in which you look out from the cockpit of a space fighter, blasting insect formations and stage bosses from a first-person view. You control the game by physically moving the 3DS up, down, left, and right to get enemies in your sights. You can also use the circle pad, but you can't move the reticle around quite as quickly this way, so it's not as effective. In addition to your standard lasers, you're equipped with a tractor beam, and by using it to capture enemies, you can gain new abilities or increase the power of existing ones. Eventually, you might have a force field, a bomb, a missile, and the ability to freeze enemies for a short time, provided you capture the requisite enemies to acquire each power.
Galaga 3D Impact's first-person perspective offers the most dramatic use of 3D in Dimensions, but the gameplay isn't quite as impactful. For much of its brief duration, Impact moves at a leisurely pace. A wave of enemies slowly soars across the screen; you blast them and wait for the next wave to appear. Your ship might be doing exciting things like flying through narrow canyons, but this all happens automatically. The novelty of its control scheme and visuals wear off quickly, and the gameplay isn't compelling enough to make this a game worth returning to time and again. The prospect of returning to it is made less attractive by the fact that you need to start at the beginning each time you come back to it. Each of its five stages only takes four or five minutes to complete, but some moments, like the boss of the third stage, can be a bit tough to overcome. The fact that you can't, say, back out to the menu from stage four of Impact to play some Pac-Man and then come back later to resume your quest from where you left off is a shame.
Pac-Man Tilt is a 2D side-scrolling platformer in which Pac-Man must jump and roll his way through a series of stages. Pac-Man isn't capable of leaping up to each ledge and over every chasm on his own, though. Navigating these stages requires you to not only control Pac-Man directly, but also to tilt the 3DS left and right, tilting the in-game world as you do so. Unfortunately, this mechanic never feels good or natural. You eventually adjust to using gravity to pull Pac-Man in whichever direction is currently down, but you never enjoy it. And when you drift into deadly hazards or fall into oblivion for the umpteenth time during the game's infuriatingly difficult final levels, you'll wish direct control of Pac-Man was enough to traverse these stages. Unfortunately, though, Pac-Man isn't fun to control either. On foot, his movement is sluggish. He can roll up into a ball, which lets him build up speed when rolling down inclines or be knocked around like a pinball, but the level design rarely makes good use of Pac-Man's speedy potential. You spend more time riding on slow-moving platforms and tilting cannonballs onto switches than hurtling through levels or doing anything similarly exciting.

Pac-Man should've had a V8.

The visuals are cheery but charmless, like an unconvincing clown at a birthday party. Obnoxiously happy, repetitive music makes this world even less enticing; meanwhile, the sound effect Pac-Man makes when you screw up, which makes it sound like he has a mild stomachache rather than like he just, say, walked into an electrical barrier, doesn't make this particular incarnation of the character the least bit endearing. If you're prone to motion sickness, you may find the experience even more unpleasant. The way background objects like castle towers tilt to remain upright independent of the foreground as you tilt the 3DS can be unsettling if you have a sensitive sense of equilibrium.
Also included are the original arcade versions of Pac-Man and Galaga. These games are timeless, and their faithful emulations here will evoke memories of pumping quarters into machines for anyone old enough to have had the experience. These games are charming reminders of the best the early years of video arcades had to offer; the colorful star field in the background of Galaga and the wokka-wokka sound effect Pac-Man makes as he gobbles up dots are examples of details that time doesn't diminish. The option to frame the screen with actual arcade cabinet artwork enhances the sense of nostalgia, but it's the simple and challenging gameplay that makes these classics worth coming back to.

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Call of Juarez: The Cartel Review

The Good

• Secret agendas smartly link the gameplay with the story  
• Challenges give co-op play a competitive edge  
• Many levels are atmospheric and offer room to maneuver.

The Bad

• You miss out on the good stuff when you play on your own  
• Unlikable characters that say and do unlikable things  
• Lots of bugs and glitches  
• Frequent pauses and frame-rate inconsistencies.

All the great ideas in the world don't necessarily make for a great game. Case in point: Call of Juarez: The Cartel. This cooperative-focused first-person shooter has some neat concepts, but makes mistakes so fundamental you might wonder how good this game may have been, given a few more months of development time. Armchair philosophers can debate such hypotheticals. The Cartel is available now, and it doesn't live up to its promise, though that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it. As one of three sleazy government agents, you thieve secret items hidden away in each level's nooks and crannies--and must do so without being caught by your curious comrades. It's an inspired notion in keeping with the innate distrust among these three slippery sorts. But what The Cartel needed wasn't inspiration--it was repair. The game is coarse and buggy, particularly on the PlayStation 3, where pauses and hitches too often interrupt the flow.

Why shoot individual gangsters when you can take down a bunch at once in a single explosion?

The Cartel also needed more likable leads and better dialogue, which isn't to say there isn't room for good antiheroes in game stories. (The original game's Reverend Ray is a shining example of an antihero done right.) But the three leads here--the LAPD's Ben, Kim with the FBI, and DEA agent Eddie--gush obscenities and sneer so often, you fear their faces may stay in that position permanently. There are a few attempts to deepen their personalities, such as a quiet scene in which Ben contemplates a taped message from an old friend. But most scenes involve a lot of yelling and racial stereotyping, with slimy gangsters calling each other "homes" and "ese" a lot, and the leads performing deeds so despicable that there's little to separate them from the goons they're fighting. Other cinematics are so dry as to lull you to sleep, such as an expository cutscene largely devoid of sound effects and music, in which government reps sit around a table and set up the game's premise.
Both aspects--the boring and the obnoxious--come together in a scene in which the three partners bloody up a target in the median of a busy highway. When playing cooperatively, you and your buddies take turns delivering a violent punch or kick with a single button press--one after another after another. The scene goes on for so long you begin to feel sorry for the guy on the ground. Yet your character (and thus, the camera) stares at the ground instead of following the violent acts of your comrades. The scene lasts for so long that you remember the sight of the poor grass textures more than the violence your team visits upon this crook. It's an uncomfortable mix of aggression and monotony.

These slo-mo bits are fun the first few times. Maybe not so much the tenth.

Nevertheless, uniting three untrustworthy agents from three different agencies is a worthy foundation, and The Cartel tries to make good on it by giving each of the three playable characters a unique point of view. The plot, in which this mismatched team attempts to disrupt a web of drug trafficking, is the same regardless of which character you play. But each character has a personal agenda. You and your companions receive phone calls from contacts, filling in story gaps and urging you to perform secret missions. When you play online with another player or two filling in for the AI, this narrative device adds an intriguing dimension that nicely parallels the escalating distrust among the team. When a teammate receives a call, you hear only his side of the conversation. And the cryptic one-sided dialogue means that you experience that distrust along with your character.
The theme of distrust carries over into those secret missions themselves. Secret missions may involve nabbing a cell phone or destroying a vehicle, and each level contains hidden objects that you, and only you, can collect. Your companions, meanwhile, have different duties to accomplish and different items to nab. The trick, however, is not getting caught. Should you thieve an item in eyeshot of a comrade, you don't get credit for taking it, though your buddy gets credit for catching you. Successfully accomplishing a task earns you experience, as does spotting a double-crossing partner. And earning experience helps you gain levels, which in turn gives you access to better guns at the start of each chapter. What a neat idea this is--not just because it cleverly links the story to the gameplay, but also because it gives cooperative play a competitive twist.

Gangsters have such one-track minds.

But like most of The Cartel's appealing concepts, secret missions suffer from glitches and other execution errors. Updates come in the form of text messages and phone calls, at which point your pace slows and you must listen to the message or read the text. You might receive an update in the middle of one of the game's clumsy fistfights, or during a high-speed car chase. You can't hang up of your own accord; all you can do is hope your foe doesn't pummel you while you stupidly hold your phone up as if nothing unusual is going on. Furthermore, some objectives can't be completed. A secret object may never appear where the waypoint leads, or you may not earn proper credit for rescuing a prisoner. You might receive a button prompt to interact with an invisible object that another character is meant to interact with. And if you play alone, with the AI controlling your two companions, you miss out on much of the uniqueness. That's because while AI companions can interrupt your attempted thefts, they never perform their own secret acts, and so you are always the spied-upon, but never a spy.

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Captain America: Super Soldier Review

The Good

• Detailed animations give your attacks serious weight  
• Stringing together long combos is satisfying  
• Good variety of objectives.

The Bad

• Sluggish moves lead to frustration  
• Automated platforming lacks excitement  
• Tired visual design  
• Dull story.

Captain America really savors a good beatdown. Once locked in a hand-to-hand fight with the foreign soldiers who threaten his patriotic ideals, he unleashes every punch, shield bash, and thunder kick in slow-motion to relish his physical superiority over his non-super adversaries. In Captain America: Super Soldier, you tear through opposing forces with xenophobic glee, and the exaggerated manner of your attacks lets you appreciate Cap's athletic prowess and diverse move set. But the fine animations come at the expense of speed and flexibility. Defeating even low-level enemies takes much longer than you would expect from the likes of The Star-Spangled Avenger, and his lethargic attitude becomes downright frustrating when you face off against large groups. Captain America: Super Soldier encompasses heroic highs and human lows, resulting in an uneven stroll through hostile Germany.

Busting Nazis makes him feel good.

Comic book detractors have been known to levy all manner of criticism at the medium. From saying that comic books embody adolescent power fantasies to claiming they distort the view of female anatomy, there are many ways to disparage these visual stories. But rarely do you hear that they are boring. Captain America: Super Soldier unfortunately embraces this last descriptor. Red Skull's single-minded quest to form an army of super soldiers is told in such a dispassionate way that it's difficult to follow along with the twists and turns, let alone care about them. Sleepy voice actors that yawn trite lines hide motivations, and there aren't many noteworthy events to grab your attention. Presentation issues carry over to dull visual design. Captain A tramps through a variety of similar-looking environments, and the unrelenting march of browns and grays dampens your spirits even more than the opposing army.
Once you look past the oppressive atmosphere, Super Soldier becomes a lot more respectable. Combat is your main means of interaction, and dispatching foes with panache gives you a warm appreciation for this well-muscled patriot. Although there is only one button dedicated to up-close attacks, Cap has a wide assortment of moves in his repertoire. Combat blows are randomly triggered based on who you're fighting and the length of your current combination. You might punch a German soldier in the belly, slam his face into your knee, or perform a rising dragon punch complete with red, white, and blue fireworks. Each individual animation is well crafted and lets you feel the pain as you beat down silly chumps. Counterattacks let you cover your backside when you're busy smacking another dude in the chops. Obvious button prompts warn you of an imminent attack, and you can chain long combos together by mashing your attack and counter buttons at the appropriate time.
In the early stages, combat is a strong point. Stringing long attack sequences together carries with it a heroic thrill, and making smart use of your agility ensures you don't suffer retaliatory blows. But by the time you reach the midpoint of the game, your carefree fun is stymied by this inflexible system. Enemies come in a variety of forms, and many of them require specific techniques to defeat. For instance, one wily robot shoots missiles your way, and you have to catch them with your shield and then throw them back to cause a debilitating explosion. But floaty controls make it tricky to block when you're surrounded by aggressive enemies, aiming your shield in first-person mode is a time-consuming task, and singling out a specific assailant isn't always possible. Furthermore, your animations take so long to unfold that it's possible to get caught in an inescapable explosion. Knock-back attacks derail your fun in a hurry, resulting in tiring ordeals as you struggle to right the wonky camera, aim at the appropriate enemies, and avoid offscreen attacks.

Red, white, and blue him away.

Despite these late-game issues, combat is still the best part of Super Soldier. When you do find a good rhythm, there's an inherent satisfaction in shoving your nationalistic superiority down a nonbeliever's throat, and periodic unlockables inject you with new powers to keep things fresh. And though the blue-clad Captain isn't known for his intellect, puzzling traps do a good job of mixing up your objectives. These conundrums frequently entail smashing the appropriate electrical box, though you have to pull off some fancy maneuvers to expose its feeble circuitry. Your shield--so sluggish in combat--is instrumental in these circumstances. You may have to ricochet gun blasts around a wall or nail a number of switches with one smooth throw, and figuring out what needs to be done and then executing it perfectly does embolden your cerebral side. Straightforward level design ensures you always know where to go next, though a number of optional objectives give you a chance to tinker around if exploration is your thing. Elective puzzles, breakable walls, and other distractions help to immerse you in the world of international sabotage.
The most devious of your secondary goals are challenges that provide difficult tests in your adventure. These time-based missions present you with specific duties, and you need to master your combat skills and movement abilities to pass with flying colors. These take an assortment of forms, including puzzle-solving, platforming, combat, and every combination thereof, which injects a healthy variety into your skull-bashing hijinks. However, certain scenarios fall flat because of mechanical limitations. Quickly defeating enemies is not The Captain's strength. Beating down enemies like you normally would (or countering their attacks) takes far too long, and even winging your shield and then finishing them off with a ground stomp doesn't always work. Cap focuses on the strongest enemy at any given time, so you may stand over a fallen foe and still not attack him. Challenges in which you aim for targets with your shield also have issues. Rotating the camera is inconsistent when pointing at the screen, and it's easy to accidentally lock on to the wrong target when you're trying to move quickly.

No fair! How come she gets a sword?

Not only is Captain America superstrong, but he also has superior agility. Unfortunately, the moments in which you must scale your environment are the weakest parts of this uneven game. Jumping from platform to platform is mostly automated. As long as you're holding the analog stick in the correct direction, Cap lands right where he should. This removes any semblance of challenge in making impressive leaps, and subsequently, much of the fun drains away. Without the fear of failure, you dutifully go through the motions without any emotional investment. Despite the win-button approach to jumping, seeing Cap hurdle gracefully through the air still carries with it some excitement, even if you don't have much direct control over the proceedings. However, later on, the game takes a serious turn for the worse. Sliding rails demand you leap off at exact moments, and the gravity holding you to these beams doesn't always kick in; thus, letting you fall back to the ground. The camera also makes it difficult to see which way you need to go at times, resulting in tedious sequences where you try to figure out where the exit point lies.
The different elements are showcased in boss sequences in which figuring out what to do is more challenging than actually doing it. There's a good variety, but many sequences fall back on tired quick-time events, and the controls aren't responsive enough to make these enjoyable. America's greatest patriot deserves a more robust and thrilling game, but there's still enough engaging content in Super Soldier to satiate any longtime Captain America fan that is thirsty for a digital offering of his fascist-bashing adventures.

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Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team Review

The Good

• Slaughtering Orks is mindless fun  
• Ork kroozer environment is grim and compelling.

The Bad

• Shallow gameplay doesn't hold up for long  
• Co-op is local only  
• Cheap deaths and poor checkpoint placement can be frustrating.

Space Marines, those perennial saviors of humankind, are once again called upon to serve in Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team. A gigantic Ork kroozer has been spotted approaching an all-important human world, and it's your job to board the ship and disable it, slaughtering the Orks aboard it in the process. There's an immediate enjoyment that comes from being powerful enough to massacre Orks by the hundreds, but that pleasure fades quickly as the simple action fails to evolve. Some frustrating moments and a puzzling lack of online multiplayer further hamper the fun, making Kill Team's quest to protect humanity a lackluster adventure.

Space Marines kill Orks dead.

Kill Team is a dual-stick shooter. As you progress through the kroozer, Orks constantly assail you by the dozens, and you use your massive weaponry to mow them down. The game makes you feel tremendously powerful. As you slaughter the Greenskins, a meter rapidly fills up that lets you perform a devastating special move, and power-ups scattered around the environment give you temporary bonuses. These power-ups do things like turn your weapon into a spread gun, give you a shield that blocks enemy projectiles, and so on. For a while, annihilating one group of Orks after another is satisfying in a mindless way, but this doesn't last. Occasionally, you may need to make smart use of power-ups or special attacks to survive particularly overwhelming Ork assaults, but for the most part, this is a point-and-shoot, no-thought-required affair. A few boss battles spice things up a bit from time to time, but because the core action is so simple and never evolves, you're likely to lose interest in battling the Orks long before your mission is complete.
Minor frustrations also crop up from time to time. Camera angles sweep around to give you a better view of where the enemies are emerging from or to provide a dramatic perspective on certain events, such as when you see just how puny you look from atop a massive Ork stompa that's pursuing you. But it's frustrating to be in the midst of a boss fight knowing that there's a health power-up just beyond the edge of the screen and that the only reason you can't reach it is the camera won't follow you. You might also occasionally find yourself dying not at the hands of Orks but as the result of the floor unexpectedly falling out from under your feet, and though you're ready for these occurrences the second time you encounter them, you may need to repeat hefty chunks of gameplay to return to the scenes of these crimes. During one section, you can only see a few steps ahead as you're forced to run along narrow platforms while explosions fill the area behind you. With the dim lighting and the camera shaking, it's hard to tell at times just where you can and can't step. The threat of falling to your death isn't fun to deal with in these situations, and failure is made all the more frustrating by the fact that you need to replay a preceding section should you fall.

Turrets are a techmarine's best friend.

You play as one of four classes, each of which has its own special move. The librarian has an area-of-effect psychic shockwave, for instance, while the techmarine places a turret that helps gun down enemies for a short time. Some classes, like the huge-gun-wielding sternguard veteran, are better equipped for ranged combat, while others, like the vanguard veteran, carry a smaller gun and a melee weapon. But this variety doesn't add much to the game since the melee combat is as simple as the gunplay; you just tap X to attack. As you play, you unlock new weapons for each class (like a fearsome-looking lightning claw for the vanguard veteran), as well as perks that can be applied to any class, such as increased health, greater melee damage, or longer-lasting power-up benefits. These unlocks are a nice reward for your progress, and they come at a rapid pace, so you never have far to go to unlock the next one. But they don't make the gameplay any more interesting, and once you're tired of mowing down Orks, the prospect of increasing your health perk from +10 percent to +15 percent isn't a compelling enough reason to slog through another mission.
There's only one type of environment in Kill Team, but at least it's a fascinating one. The kroozer's interior appears to have been cobbled together by the Orks from bits and pieces of conquered vessels. The ship's machinery looks simultaneously primitive and impressive, with memorable details including massive piston cores chugging away and an elevator platform that is nothing but a huge rotating gear. Less impressive than the environment is the game's attempt to use slow-motion close-ups to highlight the spectacular carnage you're causing. The limbs of your fallen foes sometimes twitch wildly during these close-ups, and occasionally, the camera zooms in on tiny little Tyranid rippers, who just look comical being killed in slo-mo.
The name of the game isn't Kill Individual, it's Kill Team, and as it suggests, you can team up with a friend to take on the Greenskin hordes. Duos have the advantages of being able to revive each other when one goes down and of benefitting from each other's power-ups by standing close together. Unfortunately, in the dark future of Warhammer 40K, the advanced technology of online play has apparently been lost, and this co-op is local only. This baffling limitation severely limits the accessibility and appeal of the co-op option.

Step 1: Shoot things. Step 2: See things blow up. Step 3: Earn points!

It only takes a few hours to blast through Kill Team's five missions. There are also survival challenges in which you fight to see how long you can survive against increasingly powerful waves of enemies, but these rely on the same gameplay that gets tiresome during the campaign. You can return to missions to find collectables and climb leaderboards, but the action is too shallow to make these pursuits rewarding. Kill Team is a forgettable game, and at 10 bucks, it's not a good value, even if you consider the fact that playing it unlocks a powersword for use in the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Fans of the grim Warhammer 40K universe looking to get in some Ork killing in advance of Space Marine's release, or those who remember the good-old days of arcade dual-stick shooters and are longing for some Smash TV-style fun, may be able to overlook Kill Team's shortcomings and get some enjoyment out of it. But there's no shortage of dual-stick shooters on PlayStation Network, and plenty of them are better than this one.

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The Avengers Kini Bergabung di XBOX 360!

Dunia tanpa superhero tentu adalah sebuah dunia yang membosankan. Walaupun hadir sebagai karakter fiksi, eksistensi karakter para pahlawan super ini memberikan warna tersendiri bagi kehidupan manusia, terutama mereka yang sedang menikmati masa indah kanak-kanak. Menyaksikan aksi satu superhero memberantas kejahatan saja sudah cukup untuk  membuat kita bersorak gembira, apalagi melihat 20 dari mereka berkumpul menjadi satu kelompok besar. Hal inilah yang ditawarkan oleh Marvel melalui The Avengers. Selain menyihir jutaan penikmat film di seluruh dunia lewa film bioskopnya yang baru saja dirilis, The Avengers juga kini dipersiapkan untuk menginvasi industri game.
Namun jangan bergembira terlebih dahulu. Singkirkan dulu semua imajinasi di kepala yang kini mungkin sedang memikirkan sebuah game action epik, setting dunia yang luas, dan kebebasan untuk memilih karakter superhero manapun dari dunia Marvel. Mengapa? Karena The Avengers: Battle for Earth tidaklah didesain sebagai sebuah game action “berat”. Game ini akan dikembangkan dan dirilis sebagai game Kinect untuk XBOX 360 dan kontroler “unik” milik Nintendo Wii-U. Belum ada tanggal rilis resmi atau kejelasan tentang mekanisme gameplay yang ditawarkan, namun Marvel sendiri sudah mempersiapkan kurang lebih 20 karakter superhero yang playable.

Kinect?! Why..oh..why..

Lantas bagaimana dengan nasib kontroler sensor gerak milik Playstation 3 – Playstation Move? Dengan dukungan game yang begitu minim, kontroler ini tampaknya tidak lagi menjadi pilihan utama platform perilisan para developer dan publisher game, salah satunya adalah Marvel. The Avengers: Battle for Earth ini kemungkinan besar tidak akan hadir untuk Playstation 3. Sebagai seorang gamer yang haus akan sebuah game Marvel yang berkualitas tinggi, keputusan untuk merilis game yang satu ini untuk Kinect benar-benar mengecewakan. Mengapa? Karena saya pribadi, dan mungkin juga Anda, pasti akan lebih mendambakan sebuah game The Avengers yang serius dan menantang daripada sekedar sebuah game menyenangkan ala Kinect.

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We Dance Review

The Good

• Good selection of songs.

The Bad

• Motion controls fail to track your movements accurately  
• Frustratingly difficult  
• Tutorial doesn't properly explain routines  
• Stilted animation  
• Download store is empty at launch.

UK REVIEW--There are some things in life that just aren't meant to be combined. Take toasters, for instance. They may make delicious toast, yes, but trying to make some while enjoying a relaxing dip in the tub, not so much. We Dance makes a similarly misjudged combination with its controls, combining motion tracking with an old-school dance mat. The result is a painfully difficult experience that only the most proficient multitasker is likely to master. Even if you choose to forgo the dance mat entirely--instead playing with just a Wii Remote--the routines are less than inspired, with dull choreography and stilted avatars. A hearty selection of tracks means there's a lot to dance to, but without fun, accessible routines to back it up, there's little reason to take it for an audition.

Perennial favourite "U Can't Touch This" makes an appearance in We Dance.

Playing We Dance requires a little more setup than your average dance game, making use of an eight-way dance mat that plugs into one of the Wii's GameCube ports. The mat is optional, but if you don't use it, then you miss out on a lot of the game's content. That's because We Dance is divided into three difficulty levels: easy, which tracks only hand gestures; medium, which tracks just the dance mat; and hard, which tracks both. To play on easy, you simply hold the Wii Remote in your right hand and replicate the actions of a virtual dancer. You're awarded points based on movements tracked by the Wii Remote, with a total displayed at the end of each song. The game isn't great at recognizing your movements, though, so even if you just stand there and wave your arms around, more often than not, you're given perfect ratings.
When you increase the difficulty to medium, you're scored purely on the movements of your feet. Eight boxes are displayed in the bottom corner of the screen, corresponding to the eight pads on the dance mat. Coloured icons fall onto them, letting you know which foot to place on which pad at the right time. This is similar to the setup in Dance Dance Revolution, but having eight pads rather than four makes it more difficult. The dances are also intended to be more natural than those in DDR, so an onscreen dancer is displayed in the box performing the movements. Trying to follow the natural movements of the dance while trying to stomp on the correct pad can be very difficult. Often, what the onscreen dancer is doing doesn't appear to match up with the pad directions, which makes for a frustrating experience.

Trying to perform motion gestures while stomping on a dance mat is incredibly confusing.

This is exacerbated when playing on hard, which combines the mat and the motion sensors. Trying to follow hand gestures while trying to press the correct pad with your feet is incredibly difficult, making it tricky to rack up points. There is an included Dance School mode, which provides lessons on each routine, but its confusing instructions make matters worse. In Dance School, each individual movement of your feet is laid out in sequence, with arrows indicating which foot should be moving to which pad. Completing the movement correctly advances the tutorial to the next move. However, interim steps are often left out, and the pad doesn't always track your movements correctly, turning what should be dance instruction into a convoluted game of Twister. Whether you score points or not, though, it's impossible to fail out of a song.
That wouldn't matter as much if the game were fun, but sadly, the dull choreography leaves a lot to be desired. The routines lack Just Dance's over-the-top silliness or Dance Central's technical prowess and consist of boring movements that do little to inspire. The way dances are displayed doesn't help much either, with stilted and animated avatars failing to convey movements in a natural way. You can get together with some friends for some four-player action, but the routines aren't geared toward multiple players, so you'll often trip up over each other's feet. At least, you have some good tracks to listen to while you do so. There are 40 in total--mostly in the pop genre--ranging from such older songs as B-52's "Love Shack" and Kool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" to such modern hits as Pendulum's "Slam" and OK Go's "Here It Goes Again." The music video for each song is also played in the background, so non-dancing observers have something to watch other than your gyrating hips.
Likewise, if you just want to kick back and watch some music videos, you can do so in Dance TV mode. However, music videos are only played in a tiny window surrounded by garish speaker walls, which is strange and irritating. The gaudy touches extend to the rest of the visuals too, with stark white backgrounds playing host to exceedingly bright neon colours that clearly ape the style of Just Dance--albeit without its subtlety. Aside from the standard dance mode, there are party games on offer, which take the form of dancing minigames. Sadly, these aren't much fun, requiring you to simply jump or pose at specific moments in the music. More disappointment comes in the form of the game's download store, which is currently empty, but more tracks are promised in the near future.

This is about as exciting as the choreography gets.

With all of its failings, We Dance is difficult to recommend, particularly when the likes of Just Dance or Michael Jackson: The Experience are a lot more fun to play, especially with friends. Its boring routines negate any enjoyment you'd get out of playing on easy, while the awkward marriage of motion controls and dance mat makes the game far too difficult to grasp on hard. You might work yourself up a sweat, but it'll be out of frustration rather than enjoyment.

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Tomb Raider Reboot Ditunda ke 2013!

Apakah Anda termasuk gamer yang menunggu kehadiran kembali aksi sang ikon – Lara Croft di tahun 2012 ini? Anda bersama jutaan gamer lainnya di seluruh dunia tampaknya harus menelan kekecewaan yang lebih mendalam. Harapan untuk merasakan petualangan Croft dengan konsep dan gaya baru yang lahir dari tangan dingin Eidos dan Square Enix di tahun ini tampaknya harus dikubur dalam-dalam. Mengikuti jejak yang sudah diambil oleh Bioshock Infinite terdahulu, Tomb Raider “versi” Reboot ini akan ditunda hingga tahun 2013 mendatang.
Eidos dan Crystal Dynamics yang bertanggung jawab atas pengembangan game ini tentu saja memberikan argumentasi untuk membuat penundaan ini beralasan. Darrell Gallagher – kepala studio dari Crystal Dynamics sendiri menyatakan bahwa penundaan ini ditujukan untuk menghasilkan sebuah cita rasa Tomb Raider yang lebih berkualitas. Saat ini mereka sedang berkutat dengan dua tujuan utama: menghasilkan sebuah game Tomb Raider modern yang akan membuat para gamer kegirangan dan  menciptakan game terbaik yang mampu mereka hasilkan. Crystal Dynamics juga menjanjikan akan menghadirkan update terbaru pada ajang E3 2012 ini.

Let me prepare a while longer.. See you all in 2013!

Namun dengan begitu banyak game-game besar yang akan hadir di 2012 ini, keputusan Crystal Dynamics ini juga terhitung cukup “bijaksana”, setidaknya untuk memastikan popularitas kelahiran kembali Lara Croft ini tidak tergerus begitu saja. Namun bagi gamer, seperti kami, yang sudah lama menantikannya, penundaan ini hanya bisa berarti satu kata: kekecewaan.

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Mari Menangkap Pokemon di Dunia Nyata!

Apakah Anda termasuk penggemar seri monster-battle legendaris Pokemon? Tidak hanya sukses sebagai anime yang dicintai oleh dunia, Pokemon juga berhasil membuktikan diri sebagai salah satu franchise video game dengan popularitas yang tidak bisa dipandang sebelah mata. Sebagai salah satu seri eksklusif milik Nintendo, Pokemon yang sudah lahir dalam puluhan seri ini selalu berhasil mencetak angka penjualan yang luar biasa, terutama di pasar Jepang. Berita yang satu ini akan semakin membuat para fans Pokemon kegirangan. Mengapa? Setelah selama ini hanya terpaku pada layar handheld dan televisi, Anda kini dapat menangkap Pokemon di dunia nyata!
Menangkap Pokemon di dunia nyata? Apakah ini berarti kita akan menemukan Pikachu berjalan-jalan tenang di halaman belakang rumah kita? Dengan teknologi Augmented Reality yang terdapat di Nintendo 3DS, hal ini dimungkinkan untuk terjadi. Nintendo secara resmi mengumumkan fitur baru yang akan ditambahkan pada Pokemon Black and White 2 lewat 3DS e-shop: Pokemon Dream Radar. Dengan fitur terbaru ini, gamer dapat merasakan sensasi menangkap Pokemon “seolah” di dunia nyata dengan konsep AR yang dihasilkan oleh kamera dan kemampuan motion sensing Nintendo 3DS. Para monster yang Anda dapatkan di mini game ini juga akan dapat Anda gunakan di permainan Anda. Wow!

HE'S REAL!!

Fitur baru ini sendiri direncanakan akan dirilis pada akhir tahun 2012 mendatang, baik untuk Pokemon Black Version 2 maupun Pokemon White Version 2. Sebuah fitur yang tentu saja harus ditunggu oleh para gamer penggemar Pokemon. Gotta catch’em all……..in the real life!

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Age of Empires Online Review

The Good

• Can be enjoyed for hours without spending any money  
• Almost every quest supports cooperative play  
• MMO-style rewards keep you hooked  
• Uniformly great presentation.

The Bad

• PVP matchmaking rarely finds appropriate opponents  
• Enemy AI isn't very bright  
• Quests are overly repetitive  
• Need to spend at least $20 to feel like you're playing a complete game  
• No Skirmish mode at launch.

When you visit the official Age of Empires Online website, a big, shiny red button invites you to play the game for free. If you take this button up on its generous offer, you'll find that once you sign up for Games for Windows Live, you can enjoy most of what Age of Empires Online has to offer without paying a cent. Like most free-to-play games, though, Age of Empires Online is ultimately designed to make money, and it wastes no time both promoting its aggressively priced premium content and making your chosen civilization feel hamstrung without it. You don't need to spend a fortune to make Age of Empires Online feel like a complete game rather than an extended demo in which you're locked out of certain features, but plan on parting with at least $20 to get the most from both its campaign missions and multiplayer options.

When starting a new quest, job one is to gather resources and set up basic de

Additional civilizations, including Celts and Persians, are coming in Age of Empires Online's future, but at launch, there are only two to choose from: Greeks and Egyptians. The differences between the two aren't nearly as pronounced as those that distinguish factions in many other real-time strategy games, but they become increasingly noticeable as you progress. It's easy to draw comparisons between the civilizations and characters in online role-playing games: They start out at level one with only a handful of units/abilities in their arsenal; you get to customize them to suit your play style by spending points on skill trees as you level up; and you can augment them with loot retrieved from fallen enemies or earned through quests that's color coded according to rarity. Furthermore, you can play as both the Greeks and the Egyptians, but you're likely to get invested enough in whichever you choose first that you won't feel the need to spend any time with the other. Given that upgrading each civilization to a premium civilization costs $20, sticking with just one is also the more wallet-friendly option.
What do you get when you upgrade to a premium civilization? You get full access to a lot of things that are deliberately dangled in front of you when you're playing for free. One of the most obvious benefits early on is that your units gain the ability to equip any blue (rare) or purple (epic) items that you've acquired. It doesn't take long for the game to start presenting you with these sort of items in the form of quest rewards, but if you're not paid up, you only have the option to sell them to one of the stores in your persistent town or have them take up space in your diminutive inventory. Either way, it's hard not to feel that you're missing out. Another compelling reason to go premium before you're more than a few hours into the game is that you can increase the size of your inventory by building up to five warehouses (think of them as bags in an RPG) instead of just two, and with the correct rare or epic blueprints, you can build larger warehouses.

You can never have too many walls and guard towers in quests where you're coming under attack.

Collecting resources and using them to build up your town is interesting for a while, but there's little reward for taking the time to make it look good, other than the personal satisfaction you may derive from it. Some rare buildings offer additional quests or opportunities to gamble that make your town worthwhile for other players to visit, but getting them requires both luck and plenty of difficult-to-obtain resources. Getting players to come and use your buildings (which can earn you money in some cases) means letting folks on your server know that you have them. In turn, that means you have to use the ever-present chat window to advertise, which isn't a particularly fun way to spend your time. Predictably, how much you can do with your town depends on whether or not you're playing as a premium civilization. Some early campaign quests require you to do nothing more than place buildings like a player-versus-player arena and an advisor hall in your city, but these quests are impossible to complete if you're playing for free. Both of the aforementioned buildings are considered premium content because they afford you access to additional PVP options (such as playing with friends) and significant benefits for your army (including stat boosts and otherwise unavailable units), respectively.
Make no mistake: Actually playing this free-to-play RTS game for free is not the way to go. Your tiny inventory is forever filling up with items that you can't use; many achievements can't be unlocked because the words "with premium content" are included in their descriptions; and as you progress through the campaign, your inability to equip the best gear or to employ certain units makes many quests noticeably more difficult or time consuming.

Every one of your units and buildings can be augmented with multiple loot items.

Reading their descriptions, you might think that the quests in Age of Empires Online--which are accepted from non-player characters and don't have to be completed in any particular order--offer plenty of variety. Goals include repairing ports on different islands, rescuing characters held in captivity, destroying enemy fortresses, and--when playing as the Greeks--employing a Trojan horse. Unfortunately, though, many of these quests end up playing out in much the same way, in part because your artificially unintelligent enemies appear so determined to stick to their simplistic plans of attack that they're incapable of deviating from them in response to your actions.
Far too many quests fall into one of two categories: Either the enemy sits back and waits for you to assemble an army and attack or you're forced to defend against waves of enemies while simultaneously assembling an army so that you can attack. The former offers no sense of urgency whatsoever; just take as long as you need to gather resources (food, wood, stone, and gold), train units by clicking on the appropriate buildings, and then march them across the map to do their thing. The latter, while occasionally challenging early on when you're still setting up your defenses, ultimately ends up much the same way. It's true that enemies are sometimes smart enough to identify and exploit weaknesses where you've built walls and guard towers to defend your town. But it's also true that you can use a single fast-moving unit as bait to lure enemies away from your town and, if necessary, around and around in circles within range of your defenses until they're all dead.

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